AJV EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION. 389 



Among the effects, j)erhaps the chief place should be assigned 

 to the general attitude toward study. Compare two children 

 trained in the two ways. On entering school both are equally 

 eager and happy. One is kept for the most part away from 

 learning, and laboriously taught to hold the empty wrappers of it ; 

 the other is taken at once into the shrine, where he soon becomes 

 at home ; and, while he gets wrappers as rapidly as the child out- 

 side, every one is full and overflowing. The former grows tired 

 of tasteless drudgery and longs to have school days over ; in the 

 latter, nearness to the central fires kindles the sacred flame, and 

 its shining through the fleshly covering makes his face a contrast 

 to that of the other child. One finds the school-room a prison ; 

 the other an enchanted land where all is " truly true." If both 

 leave school during the first six years — as so many do — the former 

 is likely to have vague notions about a large field of study, and 

 but little interest in its contents or faith in their value ; while the 

 latter will be as likely to preserve sympathy with learning, and 

 desire to advance it in himself and others. 



Among other effects may be mentioned : 



1. The children learned to ask serious questions. In a lesson 

 on clouds and rain, Emma asked, " Why is the rain not salt, if 

 most of the cloud vapor comes from the ocean ? " She was told 

 to dissolve a certain amount of salt, to evaporate the solution over 

 a fire, and note results. On the following day she reported that 

 the same amount of salt was left after evaporation as she had first 

 used, and gave as her conclusion that ocean- water in evaporating 

 leaves all its salt behind ; and the youngest boy added, " Then 

 only pure water can float up into the blue sky." 



2. They learned that opinion without knowledge is folly. In 

 planting a window garden, they put seeds in pots of earth ; I, be- 

 tween wet blotting-papers. Their decided opinion was that my 

 seeds would not grow. A week later they were eager to give this 

 sentence, " The seeds in Miss Alling's garden did grow." 



3. They became fond of mental activity. They were not marked, 

 formally examined, hurried, nor required to do a certain amount 

 in a definite time. This freedom and leisure transformed their 

 first laborious, timid thinking into a delight, which they entered 

 upon as spontaneously and fearlessly as upon their outdoor physi- 

 cal games. 



4. Their habits of thinking improved. At first they showed 

 but a superficial interest in the objects studied, and much ques- 

 tioning was needed to direct and hold their attention ; later, they 

 voluntarily seized upon the marked features of objects and phe- 

 nomena, and pursued them until practically exhausted. We did 

 not flit hither and thither, giving the children new objects of 

 study each day, but kept them at work upon one so long as it 



